Vanessa Schutte, AIA, ALEP

DLR Group is an integrated design firm providing architecture, engineering, planning, interior design, and building optimization from offices coast-to-coast and in China. Core areas of design expertise include Civic, Courts, Detention, Energy Services, Higher Education, Hospitality, K-12 Education, Retail, Sports, and Workplace. Our promise is to elevate the human experience through design. This promise inspires sustainable design for a diverse group of public and private sector clients; local communities; and our planet. DLR Group fully supports the initiatives and goals of the 2030 Challenge and is an initial signatory to the AIA 2030 Commitment.

Learning Spaces Studio is a 4th year collaborative architecture and interior design studio predicated on the idea that innovative learning spaces should be designed to encourage exploration and inquiry. These types of spaces rely on the collaboration of architects, interior designers, researchers, students, teachers, administrators, parents – the greater school family to be successful. As they collaborate with one another, the students address a number of complex problems. They explore how learning spaces accommodate a variety of people with differing personalities and learning styles and study the educational theory of multiple intelligences to better understand what it looks like to design spaces for different types of learners with a range of modalities. Given the tremendous impact designers can have on both the function and spirit of these spaces, this gets to the central question of what this studio focuses on: How can design create spaces that transform the learning environment?